Our Future In Celluloid

WE are working on a film project that has been toyed with for a while, but its only now with a little horse trading that it seems as though we can move forward.

That's right Boys and Girls! The BoHo Scarecrow movie is now go. Said horse trading has been done with business partner over at Kruger One, and I am heading into the movie business. Its going to be a bit like Filth & The Fury meets Magical Mystery Tour.

Film, if not my first wife, was my bedfellow for some yours. I studied it at University, particularly British non-realism and West coast avant-garde. Beyond that, I continued my odyssey on time and process based image projections, with my thesis on Gustav Metzger. I met Metzger and Boyle Family too.

This project has two distinct goals:

1) Produce an engaging promotional film for The BoHo Scarecrow project.

2) Generate video content for live performance projection.

And what of the New Year?

I'm rather keen to go into detox for a few months and have a holiday from drinking. I also want to stop smoking. My body needs the rest, and my pocket needs the money. Not least because I'd like to head out to L.A in the Summer and go on tour.

What a decade its been! My life is unrecognizable. Much better prepared for the new decade. A new epoch, for me I think. This is supposed to be the decade when I finally make a lot of money. In ten years time, I am supposed to be rich enough to start funding other people's vanity projects.

Regardless, Happy New Year.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

The Christmas Tide

SO, we've nearly made it through another year. A new decade is just around the corner.

Despite my misgivings, last Sunday's show turned out to be a bit of a cracker. I was joined on stage by Fiddler Dan, who I jammed with at the Underwriter a couple of months back. He trecked all the way up from Croydon to play the gig. Had never heard the songs or rehearsed them. Halfway through the set we were backed by a drummer I found on the night called Jake. Jake turned out to be a bit of a pro.

My voice was shot for most of the gig. It was a show that I really didn't want to play. I felt empty inside beforehand. The cancellation at Monto really hit me hard, and emotionally the last few months have been a bit of a roller coaster.

But it came together as a whole. It was one of the most fun gigs that I've had for a while. The energy was tremendous particularly when Jake joined us. I have edited a couple of the songs together for you. Hope that you enjoy them.

Someone described the video as "magnificent", someone else said that it was "glorious", but most of all, my dear friend Tiff said that it was Buffets style, no rehearsal and all heart. I think that this is what rock n roll is always about. Its the spirit of what I want to do.

I like this type of chaos. When my old band The Light split after a few shows, I think that it had got too tight. The old magnificent madness of musicians getting together and simply rocking out, wasn't there. What BoHo Scarecrow offers is that kind of innocence, it isn't naivity, but the scope to take risks. The risks is where the adrenalin and the energy comes from.

Hope that you enjoy it. It all happens at 1 minute 59 seconds, btw.

The BoHo Scarecrow



Direct Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8oB5ARO9Wk

So, you thought you might like to go to the show?

NEED to start putting my house in order for tonight's show.

I really have no idea what will happen. Dan the fiddler says that he's going to turn up and play. I have my finger crossed on that one.

I wrote in my last post about viewing this gig with trepidation. I still do. I seem to be running through a crisis of confidence.

But I also have a lot of anger building up in my gut. I hope that I will find a way to channel this tonight. Anger is a poison. I hate it. It needs to be purged.

I may also, finally, meet the mysterious Mobile Oracle tonight. This person I have never met nor know what they look like, might be in attendance. The deal is this, if she's there I have to pick her out of the crowd using only my instinct. Scarecrow senses.

I have no idea what will happen. I do sense the end of an era though. The snow we have in London at the moment, blown in from north is but the second coldest thing in town. The other is harder countenance. Nothing is more frustrating than when people assume they know or understand what drives the artist to make art or what drives the performer to perform. The guess of the dilletente always assumes that trials and tribulations must feed the creative process. It does not. The story goes way, way back. You have no idea. You, have no idea.

"STOP! I want to go home. Take off this Uniform and leave the show. And I'm waiting in this cell because I have to know. Have I been guilty, all this time?"

Pause

LOOKING forward to Sunday's show, not without trepidation though. I don't think that my heads been quite right recently about music, but there are cogs and wheels whirring in the background. I think that it will be a good show. Could have some surprises if a few ideas come off.

I have no idea if they or I will come off anytime soon. I seem to have turned into something of a passenger, but with a fair wind I will be fronting a new band as a side project soon and auditioning BoHo Scarecrow drummers over the Christmas break too.

I have put my house in order on a number of fronts in the last few weeks. Part of this was squaring things up with the bank manager, and so I have a lot more freedom of spirit in that direction than I have had for years. But its framework, and now I have to live within it.

I resurected the Lyric Wall over the week on the encouragement of the Mobile Oracle, who mysteriously and benignly seems to be guiding me at the moment. A strange relationship, but good to see what I have written recently next to me up on my wall. It has been an intense, engaging and often inspiring couple of months. Painful though too. I have had disappointments and know that I need simply to push through to Spring and survive.

I am enjoying some simple pleasures. Things like cleaning with my new flat mates. Lovely people. Bright and full of energy. I went out for dinner with my ex yesterday, and had a fantastic mexican nosh up near Covent Garden. It was first rate. I'm blessed to have kept a good relationship there.

The show on Sunday is at the Zenith Bar in Islington. Its a free show with voluntary donations to charity. One song keeps on running through my head, In Portland Gaol, the theme and origin of which I still seem find so painfully relevant.

You know, I have had the most tremendous amount of luck. I was discussing this with the Mobile Oracle a couple of days ago. I really can't complain. Who am I to argue if the package is a little torn. But I miss people. I miss Ken and Jill over in Ireland. I miss ex girlfriends and lovers. I seem to meet a fantastic number of people, but it is very difficult to build robust friendships. Most of all at the moment, I am trying to renew the relationships within my own family. We have been too distant; there is so much madness in the world today, so much pain and anger. I see it in people's faces and wish that I could take it away from them. Maybe not as altruistic as might first seem, I believe that I am seeking to replace my own.

We have snow in London today. Christmas is rapidly approaching and with it the end of the first decade of this millenium. I sit here and wonder what it will bring.

"Will there be music or will there be war, who will walk through the Mirror Door?"